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Posted on: January 8, 2015

Roach praises choice to serve as 30th District state representative

Pierce County Council Chair Dan Roach says he’s pleased with the governor’s appointment of Carol Gregory to fill the vacant 30th District seat in the state House of Representatives. That position has been open since the death of former Rep. Roger Freeman, who died in October but was posthumously reelected in November.

“I want to congratulate Representative Gregory. I expect she’ll do an outstanding job representing her constituents in the House,” said Roach, himself a former state representative. “In fact, all three candidates were top-tier, and the people of the 30th District were well served to have such a qualified, dedicated pool of individuals from which the governor had to choose.”

Roach says the fact that King and Pierce Counties could not jointly agree on a replacement for Freeman – which led to the governor making the decision – had nothing to do with a lack of support for any of the preferred candidates. Rather, he said the disagreement stemmed solely from the way the King County Council attempted to direct the appointment on its own without meeting jointly with the Pierce County Council.

“The way these replacements are chosen is through a weighted voting system, not ‘you-pick-yours-and-we’ll-pick-ours,’” Roach said. “Weighted voting is the most equitable way to do it, and unfortunately that was ignored in this process. I didn’t want to set that precedent.”

Although Pierce County officials question the legality of King County's action, Roach maintains that he supports Gregory's appointment and will take no further action on the matter.